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Luxury goods companies were badly hit during the recession. Now some are starting to see customers return. But affluent shoppers are a changed bunch, says Robert Boulogne, chief operating officer of Rosewood Hotels & Resorts.

The aspirational customer is gone, says he. The well-to-do folks who are shelling out big bucks for a night at Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas or Jumby Bay on Antigua, can easily afford it. They are price-sensitive but want as much service as they always received, even though prices of hotel rooms are still depressed.

“Customers are still looking for the exact same service levels as they were before we had to reduce pricing,” says Boulogne when I caught up with him recently in West Palm Beach, Fla. “I don’t believe that is ever going away. They want value. They are going to hang on to that.”

People are no longer embarrassed to be associated with luxury brands. So, after scrapping the word “luxury” from its marketing materials just before the recession—Boulogne wasn’t prescient, he says, the word “luxury” was being overused—Rosewood is working on a new corporate ad effort that will roll out next year trumpeting the luxury of its properties. “We’re changing our advertising campaign next year back to image advertising to show what luxury stands for,” he says. “It’s about experience. We’re going to bake that into our new campaign and celebrate that.”

“Luxury, in my opinion, means choice,” says he.

And, increasingly, it means choosing to travel with family. These days, wealthy travelers are bringing their kids to high-end properties, a trend that he says has been on the uptick since 9/11, notes Boulogne. It accelerated during the recession. “It continues to surprise me,” says the father of two. “If people have children, they are going to bring them. That’s another thing that’s not going to change.”